Habib Hajallie
Although Born in Southeast London, my Sierra Leonean and Lebanese heritage usually feeds directly into my practice. I look to convey a sense of empowerment to often marginalised ethnic groups in the western world, through the exploration of cultural identity.
I seek to create a discourse regarding society’s perception of people to be of varying humanistic value. With the disenfranchised often being undermined by the mainstream media; which somewhat paradoxically reflects a hierarchy of status similar to colonial ideals in reference to the transatlantic slave trade.
To Freetown
By assuming the role of the boxer, I seek to confront my ideologies of how masculinity is perceived in the modern world. I look to create a discourse regarding why I and a generation of male millennial’s desire physical prowess.
The Ship drawn in a somewhat simplistic yet bold style, represents the slave ships used to transport masses of black people stripped of human value. This disturbing thought of years of atrocities ultimately lead to freed slaves settling in Sierra Leone in the late 18th century, with the capital being named Freetown. An element within this multi-layered concept behind this idea, is to draw parallels between the hierarchy of human status in the transatlantic slave trade and the ethnocentrisms that existed throughout the colonialism of African nations which are still apparent in modern society
UKNA Projects:
UKNA City Takeover: Nottingham 2019
Winner of the 2022 Robert Walters Group UK New Artist of the Year Award